The $750,000 upgrade of the embankments at the University Oval has put the Otago Cricket Association (OCA) under financial pressure, chief executive Mike Coggan says.
Coggan said the OCA had hoped some of the $1million the Dunedin City Council (DCC) had made available for the abandoned lights project would have been transferred to the embankment upgrade.
But with the DCC making it clear no funds would be immediately available for the project, the OCA opted to commit $100,000 of its reserves to get the project under way.
"We did have initial discussions with senior council staff about some of the funding being transferred to support the embankment project,'' Coggan said.
"There was probably some ambiguity, but in my view I thought we could get that done. But the council made it very, very clear, shortly after we withdrew that lights project, that we would have to go back to council [for funding] and it would be a completely new project.
"But given that we have had a significant increase in development costs as a consequence of the entire building consents process, we may have got some support from the council.
"They made it clear that wasn't going to be the case either and, if we wanted [financial] support, we would need to either stall the project and apply to the annual plan, or apply to the annual plan for some retrospective funding.''
However, Coggan said the project was too important to wait for the next round of funding.
Without lifting the ground's capacity to the required minimum of 6000, the OCA would not be able to bid for significant international fixtures for the next two years.
"Without this upgrade I have no doubt we would be destined to secure much lower level content over the next two years,'' Coggan wrote in the association's newsletter.
"Dunedin city, supporters of Otago cricket and all other sports fans deserve to see the best possible international sides here over the coming years. We must benchmark against Hagley Park. The embankment upgrade is a big step towards that goal.''
The OCA will apply to annual plan for retrospective funding but in the meantime it will need to monitor its cash flow closely, Coggan said.
"We are always going to have financial pressures because the board is now ultimately underwriting the project because there is no council support.
"We have got the reserves but we don't want to eat away at them. We are going to have to be very careful with our cash flow through the next three or four months.
"But we would like to think, as a consequence of the project being completed and it being a beautification of a council asset, and also being of economic benefit to the city, that the council may be of a desire to support in some way the financial costs being borne.''
Council parks, recreation and aquatics group manager Richard Saunders could not be reached for comment.
